The South Australian Department for Environment and Water (DEW) has developed a comprehensive suite of standards, tools and guidelines to improve the quality and transparency of the science we produce. The approach is named MEK (Managing Environmental Knowledge). The MEK suite of resources supports the department’s Information Management Framework and is aligned to South Australia’s Digital by Default and Open Data agendas. DEW Project Management Framework (PMF) does not currently address data management in projects. The MEK fills this gap by adding steps to the project phases which enable data supply chain management. This reminds projects of the importance of early data management planning and which standards or guidelines to refer to during the execution and delivery of a project. MEK tools support project managers and scientists to explicitly document data supply chains so that provenance of intermediate data outputs and publishable products is clear and accessible.
MEK tools include (i) data planning form for estimating resources and broad needs of a project in relation to data management, (ii) data charts that provide a visual way of describing data supply chains and (iii) data catalogue for storing detailed metadata of each element in the data charts. The guidelines that underpin these tools include: data storage describing how to make use of the various corporate systems and applications, evaluation detailing the peer review procedures for major deliverables and evaluation guidelines for other project outputs, data handling describing information classification and sensitive data handling, and publication including proofing and publishing procedures.
These tools and guidelines are applied and used to help manage and map groundwater data in a range of applications including groundwater modelling, resource condition reporting, and approval processes. Utilising MEK tools improves the integrity and availability of groundwater data whilst ensuring transparency and effective use of existing information systems. In addition the MEK resources are enabling the Groundwater Team to improve its culture around data management, deliver improved groundwater science outputs and thereby enable evidence based decision making to support the management of our State’s groundwater resources.